James Baldwin

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

There is a 'sanctity' involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.